


Encoded

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: The Inside (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-16
Updated: 2006-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between sleeping and waking comes intuition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Encoded

"You think I'm full of shit, don't you?"

Rebecca turned away from the window and looked at the sloppily dressed young woman in front of her. "What?"

"You don't believe me, that this is true," she insisted. She tucked a stray piece of red hair back into the sloppy, curled mass loosely pinned to the top of her head. "You don't think this gift exists. You think I'm making it up."

Rebecca turned back to the window. Somewhere out there, the UNSUB and Danny waited, a different kind of tango than this. Rebecca hated babysitting witnesses. She hated being social. "I don't have to. It's enough that he does."

"It doesn't matter. I'm not the one that dies tonight."

She sounded so sure of herself that Rebecca turned around. "What are you talking about?"

"I've already seen this far ahead. Tonight is not my night to die. My time isn't up yet. He will make a wrong move, your partner will shoot, it will be fatal. The rest of us get to move on to another day and time."

Rebecca shook her head. "Sarah..."

The redhead stood up. Her curls spilled down from the pins, and she fixed Rebecca with a hooded gaze. Her smile was sharp and full of teeth. Rebecca could feel a shiver creep down her spine at the sight of it, though she didn't immediately understand why.

"Don't you know, Becky? You never could get away from me." Sarah's grin widened, teeth glinting in the half light. The voice she spoke with didn't seem like her own, and seemed more like the voice Rebecca couldn't avoid in nightmares. Sarah stepped forward as Rebecca stepped backward. "You can't let it go because I won't let you."

From somewhere outside the window, a shot rang out.

***

"Here we go, back at home, all safe and sound," Danny said cheerfully, parking in front of Rebecca's building. "You do all right with the psychic?"

Rebecca snorted. "I would've rather been out there tonight with the UNSUB."

Danny smiled, shaking his head. "But you're the female one, and I wouldn't have been able to stay with her. Well... not on company time anyway. It's best that you were there tonight. Though next time, the two of you and Jell-O would not go unappreciated."

Rebecca didn't agree, but remained silent on that topic. "What do you think will happen at the debriefing tomorrow?"

"I don't think it'll be much more than a footnote. We did our best to avoid this, but when he pulled a gun of his own... He ignored the warnings, and was going to shoot. We had to."

"It was your bullet."

"Between the eyes," Danny agreed solemnly. "I thought it best to do it quick."

Rebecca smiled wanly, ignoring the chill down her spine. "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you later at the debriefing."

"Try not to be late," Danny teased as she left the car.

"And miss the witty repartee? Of course not."

***

Rebecca hurried into the office. She was late, and was hurrying as best as she could without looking as though she was running. Her alarm clock hadn't gone off that morning, and had been flashing midnight when she did wake up. Apparently the power had gone out, and her backup battery had failed. Days like these...

She ran into Paul and Web on their way out of the debriefing room. "Hey. I'm sorry, my alarm clock didn't go off. Did I miss anything from the debriefing?"

They looked at her strangely. "Debriefing?" Web asked.

"The case?" she replied, looking between them.

"Oh. We have that right here," Paul said easily, handing her a slim manila folder. "There's not a lot of information in here yet, but it's pretty high profile. Her uncle pulled strings to get our attention on this."

Sarah Miller's file folder had been thin, but the associated file for the UNSUB had been fairly hefty. He had been targeting various area psychics for some time, and they had only gotten lucky with Sarah the night before. Rebecca hadn't heard of any uncle getting involved in the case, but her knowledge on it had been fairly sketchy to start with.

"I'll read this over, then," she said, giving them her social smile. It never reached her eyes.

"Get back to us as soon as you've figured it out," Web insisted. "The sooner we get this thing wrapped up, the better."

"Sure thing," Rebecca said, nodding. She took the folder to her desk and opened it. She looked at the folder twice to be sure what she was seeing was the real thing or not. There was no mention of Sarah Miller the psychic at all. This was a completely different case, different information gathered, different UNSUB. Anna LeBeau was a clinical psychiatrist being threatened via e-mail and letters to her home. Deadheaded roses had started appearing on her front steps, and her uncle was a friend to one of the Assistant Directors.

Nothing was making sense anymore. What happened to Sarah Miller's file?

Rebecca went over to Danny's desk. "Hey, what happened to that other case we were working on, the one with the psychic, Sarah Miller?"

Danny looked at her blankly. "What are you talking about?"

"Just yesterday..."

"Don't tell me you were in here working over the weekend again," Danny asked, concerned.

Rebecca's eyes skipped over to Danny's desk calendar. It was Monday, not Wednesday. She had apparently thought it was two days ahead. She smiled at him ruefully. "You know me," she said. "It's a bad habit."

"Stick to one thing at a time, will you? That's how good agents burn out."

"Sure thing," Rebecca promised, and headed back to her desk.

Now she was really confused.

***

Anna was a thin blonde woman whose face looked as though it had been edged and carved with a knife. Her nose was thin and pointed, her cheekbones sharp and high. Her hair was thin, almost wispy, but her eyes were shockingly blue and piercing. She smiled easily enough, but it never seemed real enough. She greeted every federal agent serenely, invited them in to speak to her, and seemed to carry her professionalism as a shield. Rebecca felt the guardedness instantly, could sense its depth. She observed and didn't comment, even when she was elected to stay with Anna overnight to see if the UNSUB did anything else.

Anna poured herself a glass of Merlot. "Wine?"

"I'm on duty," Rebecca replied, waving it off.

"Pity. It's a good year." Anna sat down in an armchair gracefully, wine in hand. "There are few comforts to be had here most days." She smiled, a stretching of lips that resembled a grimace more than a grin. "It was quite the transition from the larger cities."

"Really? Where were you from?"

"I'm an army brat. I'm from everywhere and nowhere," Anna replied. "But in training... Have you ever been in hospitals late at night?" Rebecca shook her head. "Can you imagine those stretches of hallways? There are dead ends and blind corridors, stairways and dark corners. There are all sorts of places that patients don't get to, that even doctors don't know about. And at night, there's only a skeleton crew to do the functions of the hospital."

"Sounds bleak," Rebecca replied into the awkward silence.

"There are creeping things," Anna said, voice low. Her gaze did not meet Rebecca's. "Shadows and shapes crawling across the floor, lingering in doorways. There are things we can't name that hide, waiting to come out."

"Where?"

"They come out at night when you're not looking." Anna looked up, eyes piercing yet seeming empty at the same time. "They take your measure, they enter your soul and find you lacking. Then they move along, and you're left wondering what it would take to be consumed."

"Maybe you shouldn't be drinking," Rebecca replied.

Her smile was hazy, full of teeth. "You're not listening. You never listen. You don't listen to me enough." Rebecca froze, not sure if she was even able to breathe. Anna's voice was not her own, even though Rebecca couldn't say how it was different. "It will reach out to grab you, take you in. It's already marked you."

"What?"

Her gaze was like looking into the eyes of death. "He's touched you. He's marked you for his own, and you know it. You can't escape it. We won't ever be free of it, will we? The dark is inside of us, encoded into our skin. It draws us in deeper." Her laugh was chilling, the sound of a madwoman. "It's only a matter of time, Becky. He's sharpening his blades and he'll come for us soon enough. We won't ever escape it."

***

"I need a new alarm clock," Rebecca groused, plopping down into her seat at work. Lately it had been more difficult to wake up on time, and the power to her apartment remained spotty. She was surprised she was able to sleep through the construction down the street, but after a while anything could be tuned out if she was tired enough.

Mel laughed and handed her a cup of coffee. "Rough night?"

"Anna is a lunatic. I don't know how she can see patients like that," Rebecca groused.

Mel frowned. "Who's Anna? You have friends we don't know about?"

Rebecca blinked at her. "Don't tell me. This isn't a case we're working on."

"You need to stop patrolling the databases," Mel warned. The other agents around the conference desk looked at each other out of concern. Well, everyone but Web. He was sitting with his back ramrod straight, eyes fixed on the file folder in front of him. "One day you'll fall asleep and you'll be working on cases in your sleep. It's how agents burn out."

"I won't burn out. I'll be fine."

Danny snorted, shaking his head ruefully. "The next thing you know, just about everything's an encoded message, you're seeing flashes of things on the floor that aren't there, you think every shadow is a creeping UNSUB out to get you. I've seen it happen, Rebecca, and you deserve better than that."

She gave him a genuine smile. "Thanks, Danny, but I'm fine. Really. I guess I'm just tired."

"Hey, how about thi," Mel began. "Instead of worrying about your alarm clock, let me call you in the morning as your wake up call. I get up pretty early. So you can get to bed and not have to think about it, and you'll get a good night's rest."

"You're too good to me, Mel," Rebecca said, grinning. "Thank you."

"No problem," she replied, smiling warmly at her.

"I think the coffee clutch is over," Web interrupted. "Now get to work."

Rebecca laughed as everyone left, and returned to her desk. She shook her head, still smiling and grabbed the top file from the pile on her desk.

Opening it, she stared at the picture of Sarah Miller, messy red curls cascading down around her very dead face. Her eyes were missing, her tongue torn out. _We saved you,_ Rebecca wanted to say, her hands beginning to shake. _I spoke with you Tuesday._

Except that it hadn't happened. Her calendar was saying it was Monday again.

***

"What happens to you if you work too much?" Rebecca asked Danny and Mel over lunch.

Mel looked at her almost uncertainly. "You actually think you're working too much?" She shook her head. "That's got to be a first."

"I'm serious. I feel like I'm losing time."

"That's definitely a sign you're working too much," Danny said with a nod. "It sounds to me like you need to relax a bit. Why don't you go home early today and get some rest?"

Rebecca thought of her empty apartment, the bare white walls and the stacks of boxes tucked in the closet because she couldn't be bothered with anything other than work. She was shaking her head before she even could finalize her thoughts. "I can't..."

"So stay over at my place," Mel offered. "If you're going to be up and working all night at your place, why don't you just pack a bag and sleep on my couch? I promise I won't let you use the computer all night."

Rebecca laughed with them, but thought hers carried a nervous edge to it. She was thinking of Anna's words, the shadows creeping along the walls and floors. She had never liked to think of the empty hospital corridors, the gaping maw of the dark night outside the emergency room doors. Some things didn't need to be explained. Some things just _were_ and that was all there was to it.

Later that night, Rebecca was sitting on her bed and getting clothes out of her dresser. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye, and whipped her head around to face the door to her bedroom. There was nothing there, nothing at all. She had been afraid that there was something creeping along the floor, but thing was there. Nobody was trying to pull themselves closer to her, mouth gaping open, eyes wide and yawning holes of darkness.

She needed to get out of there.

***

Rebecca smiled sweetly at Mel as the couch was made up after dinner. She changed into her nice pajama set, the one reserved especially for days she wasn't at home. It had still carried the creases from the store folds. Mel was nice enough not to comment on them. She curled up on the couch, back tight against the cushions. The lights were out, it was dark, and the computer was in a different room.

There was a scratching in the walls.

Rebecca's eyes snapped open, and she was afraid of seeing dark hair and wide eyes staring at her in the dark, leering. The floor would undulate, the whispery susurrus would begin, and the dark would close in around her.

But she saw none of that, thankfully. She honestly didn't know if she would have seen it at her own apartment. The creeping things hadn't been there, but there hadn't been scratching at her apartment. Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the blanket over her head. There were no eyes in the darkness, peering at her. She couldn't shake the feeling that they were out there, peering through the walls, staring. Those eyes would stare down at her in the darkness, and there would be hands reaching out for her, pinning her down. _I see you, I see you. You can't get away from me!_ the voice would whisper. It was scratchy, almost raw from screaming. It was really only a matter of time before the floor would roll, undulating beneath her and pitching her out of the couch.

She shivered beneath the blanket, squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

There was a scratching in the walls, and it was going to drive her insane.

***

The trail of their current serial killer led to an apartment complex with a crumbling facade and peeling paint. The Art Deco touches in the lobby had never been kept up, and it looked sad and decrepit. If buildings could talk, this one would have been crying.

Rebecca climbed the spiral stairs and knocked on the door. She hadn't been told much more than she had to secure the witness to the last murder, and so she had run into the building while the others had continued the chase after their killer.

Rebecca's heart stopped when she recognized the redhead in front of her, messy curls piled atop her head. "Sarah Miller?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. Come on in. I've been waiting for you."

Rebecca felt a vague sense of deja vu as she walked into the house. The couches all where she remembered them to be, the chipped tabletop holding the television set, the cracked paint on the walls and the faded photos in the fake mahogany picture frames. She had been here before, even if it had only been in dreams. If that had even been dreams; Rebecca didn't know if she was sleeping or waking anymore. She didn't know why that thought didn't frighten her.

"What did you see?"

Sarah gave her a conspiratorial grin. "I think the better question is what _you_ saw. Did you see it? Did you see the end?"

"Sarah..."

"When he comes, he comes in different shapes. His eyes are the only things that don't change. It's all about the eyes. Sometimes he looks different, his mouth is stretched wide. Sometimes he has a tooth missing, gapped out and bleeding. His hands are blue or purple, cuts on his arms. He's wide inside, isn't he? Bruising?"

Rebecca backed away from Sarah, biting down on her rising fear. She could feel the bile rising within her, and turned to the window to keep herself from throwing up. She refused to show fear, refused to let it take her. It would not win, _it would not._

"You think I'm full of shit, don't you?"

Rebecca stilled, turned away from the window. "What? Why do you say that?"

"You don't believe me. You aren't listening. You don't see the messages encoded."

"Tell me," Rebecca replied, crossing her arms and facing Sarah. "Make me see."

Sarah's grin was wide and full of teeth. Somewhere beyond the window came the sound of a gunshot. After a moment, there were three more in quick succession.

"He's coming. Through the window."

Rebecca turned to the window, arms flying loose. She saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye and turned back away from the window. There was nothing outside of the window anyway, and Rebecca could see Sarah running into the hallway through the front door. Rebecca gave chase, seeing her just ahead, right where the hallway met another in a T junction. Sarah turned right, and then a moment later, so did Rebecca.

A man in a black hooded cape held Sarah, skeletal fingers clutching her throat tight. Rebecca could see a hint of green pant leg beneath the swirling cloak. "I warned you," Sarah gasped. "Behind you, just where you don't look. I _warned_ you..."

There was a blossom of pain at the base of Rebecca's skull, and the world went dark.

***

When Rebecca came to, Paul and Danny were standing over her. Mel was on the phone calling for an ambulance. She sat up with Paul's help, and could feel Danny's blue eyes boring into her like lasers. _I can't even say what's happened here,_ Rebecca thought with dismay. _I don't even know what happened myself._

Rebecca touched her temple and her fingers came away tacky with blood. "Ow."

"How are you feeling?" Paul asked, concerned. Everyone was so damn concerned about her lately, long looks and silent stares. She could feel it along her spine, and she was sick of it. She didn't want them looking at her or thinking about her. She didn't want to be social, she didn't want company, she didn't _want._

"It's a hospital," Rebecca said, suddenly looking up. She looked at Mel, who was getting off of the phone. "He's taking them to the hospital."

"Are you sure you don't have a concussion?" Danny asked. He seemed to be measuring her with his gaze; she was sure she was found wanting. She hated that feeling.

"I'm fine. I don't know what happened just now, but Sarah was here, and somebody grabbed her. He had a black cloak on. And scrubs. That had to be what the green was."

They all eyed each other warily, but Paul let Rebecca climb to her feet. "How are you feeling?" Paul repeated.

"I'm fine," Rebecca ground out, irritated. She didn't have time for this. Sarah was going to die if they kept talking, and her life wasn't worth the chatter. "We need to get to the hospital. Wasn't there construction in the back, by the old ER entrance?" _Yawning, gaping, open wide, a maw of darkness waiting to claim them all..._

"I'll drive," Danny said, voice clipped. "Let's go."

***

The local hospital had been undergoing renovations over the past few years, with most of the work having been done three years ago. It had been stalled in the past year due to rocky finances, and so the old ER entrance was shrouded in thick plastic that waved in the wind. There weren't any lights on in that section of the parking lot, and the entire area was deserted. Rebecca felt chills running down her spine, tried to force the image from her mind. She knew it would give her nightmares; the sound of the plastic shifting in the wind was hauntingly familiar. _The plastic rippled, waved, moved. Fingers scrabbling across the plaster, across the concrete floor, anything to try and get purchase. No, don't kill me, don't, no!_

Rebecca let the others go in first. She didn't feel comfortable with a gun in her hand tonight, didn't feel as though she was truly ready for this. The image of Sarah dead in the photograph haunted her, though it hadn't happened yet.

_St. Mary's never looked quite so deserted..._ Rebecca shook her head to clear it, let the others pull farther ahead. They didn't look back.

_The floors are waved, feel them move. Little feet and little legs, wavering, clawing, chewing down deep. No room to move, no room to grow. How else will our garden grow?_ The voice in her head cackled crazily, hands rubbing together with glee. Eyes glinted maniacally in the dark, and they slitted shut to contemplate his catch. There was the sound of scratching in the walls, fingers scrabbling against cement. _The quarry is afraid..._

There was a shout from down the covered hallway, the cry of shocked surprise. Rebecca was pulled out of her reverie and realized she was all alone in the hallway. The others had gotten too far ahead. She looked around her, eyes wide. She had never done that before, never. She had never before sunk in this deep.

Rebecca could hear a soft whispering sound behind her, the susurrus of breathing through an open mouth. She spun around in time to see a black cloud descend upon her, knocking her to the ground. Rebecca kept her head up and away from the concrete floor, and her gun was trapped between them, pointed into her assailant's belly. He raised his head, and Rebecca saw into his hazy eyes. They were wide and bloodshot and a veined garden green. _Please God, not PCP!_ Rebecca thought frantically as she pushed up against him. That would spell all kinds of trouble she wasn't ready for. It was bad enough the walls were moving thanks to the wind flowing through the plastic lining. She didn't need this guy deciding to paint the walls with her blood as a hobby.

His head rose higher as he laughed, a raw and scratching sound. His teeth were broken or missing, blackened stubs within a gaping mouth edged in dried blood. The end of his tongue looked as though it had been bitten clear through at the very tip. Just below his nose was a rim of dried blood, as if he had tried to inhale it not so long ago.

_Sarah._

Rebecca found her hand tightening around her gun almost convulsively, and it exploded into his belly. She could feel the warm spill of blood flow over her hand as she kicked him off and scrabbled backward. The sound of the shot echoed through the hallway, and Rebecca was suddenly very aware of how very alone she was.

"My garden," the man was sobbing, clutching at his belly. He had fallen onto his side and was rolling back and forth. "My garden will be lost without me..."

"A garden? Here?" Rebecca found the plastic-covered wall at her back, and looked over her shoulder to see where she was in relation to the hallway. Three feet away from her was a window that had been covered over in the same plastic.

_"He's coming. Through the window."_

Rebecca edged away from it, unintentionally moving toward the gutshot man on the floor. He rolled to his stomach, continuing to moan about his beloved garden. "It needs me... She needs me... She will be lost without me..."

He was crawling toward her, dragging himself forward with blood-covered hands. He was trying to pull closer to her, his mouth gaping open, eyes wide and looking like empty holes. "You should join me... Care for her... Feed her... Yes, you should feed her..."

Rebecca found herself edging backward as he crawled forward. When his movements picked up speed, so did she.

_The window._

Rebecca spun away from it just as someone knifed their way through the plastic.

"She hurt meeeeee..." the bleeding man whined, looking up at the dark figure. There was a trail of blood smeared across the concrete behind him, and he reached up toward the new figure. "She hurt me, she must feed her..."

The new man was dressed in a black cloak, and there was an edge of green peeking out beneath the hem of the cloak. He knelt down beside the other and touched his face. "Of course," he said softly, his voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper. He turned to Rebecca, whose gun hand had risen without her thinking about it. He didn't seem perturbed by her gun at all, didn't seem to notice anything but her pale skin and blonde hair. "Yes. Another pretty maid. It's too soon to take on another, but we can hold onto her until we are ready. She's perfect for the collection. She will definitely help our garden grow."

Rebecca's voice didn't waver. "Stay where you are. I'm a federal agent."

"Federation and confederation, time and end." He grinned at her, his brown eyes somehow blank and glassy. His smile never reached his eyes, and seemed to stretch too thin. He had no business smiling at her; his smiles were death.

"Don't move!"

"The bells will look lovely on you," the other crooned. Rebecca had been so focused on the man standing up that she had forgotten about the one she had wounded. He clasped her ankle in a bloody hand, yanking. She managed to stay upright, but her line of sight to the man in hospital scrubs was broken.

Shots fired from her left, and Rebecca turned her head. Everyone was back, and both men's heads exploded with ripples of blood.

Paul and Mel went straight to the other man. Danny, for whatever reason, came straight to Rebecca. His blue eyes never left her face.

"Rebecca," he said, voice soft and respectful. Without knowing why, Rebecca collapsed against him, shaking violently but not yet sobbing, her gun still held loosely in her right hand. It didn't take more than a moment for his hands to settle onto her shoulders, fingertips tracing the edge of her spine. Despite the feeling of intrusiveness, she also had a feeling of comfort. She felt safe in his arms, held against his chest. It felt as if her body had been leached of warmth, and the only way to survive the cold was to absorb the heat radiating from Danny.

And then the moment passed, and Rebecca pulled back. She rubbed at her eyes and couldn't meet Danny's gaze. "Thank you," she murmured awkwardly. "I'm better now."

No, she wasn't, but he accepted the lie. "You need to see what we found."

In the blind end of the corridor, there was the scent of decay and death, plant and animal and insect. The cement had been jackhammered out, topsoil placed into most of the area. Various plants grew under the bare fluorescent lights. Each different kind of plant had its own area staked out and separated from another with twine and metal stakes.

In front of the garden were five girls. Their eyes had been torn out, their jaws wrenched open and their tongues ripped out. They had been buried to the waist at the front edge of the garden, concrete poured around them to keep them in place. Their bodies were purpled with bruises or the onset of decay, strings of shells and silver bells twined into their hair and looped around their naked torsos. _Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row._

Rebecca recognized the fifth one, the last one on the right and closest to where Sarah lay on the ground hogtied. She had wispy blonde hair and sharp, chiseled features. She was trying very hard to be quiet and still, pretending to be as dead as the other girls. She walked over to her and knelt beside her. "Anna."

The girl reacted instantly, grasping at Rebecca. Her broken fingernails scrabbled against Rebecca's jacket as she sobbed without tears or tongue. Rebecca bowed her head, refusing to look at anyone else in the room. Sarah was alive and untouched, merely knocked out and tied up, awaiting her fate. Anna was a hair's breadth away from death, dying slowly to feed a garden tended by two insane men. Rebecca didn't know if she was still a doctor, or if her dreams had been wrong on that point, too. She wrapped her arms around the thin, naked torso and made shushing sounds. "I know, I know," Rebecca murmured, voice soft and crooning. She rubbed Anna's back gently in a circular motion. "It's okay now, Anna. It's all right now. They're both gone." Anna made an incoherent moan, her head shaking against Rebecca's belly. "Sh... We took them away, Anna. You're safe now. You're safe with us. We're federal agents, Anna. We've found you."

When Rebecca raised her head, she found herself looking straight at Danny. Their eyes locked, and she found she couldn't look away. It was almost as if he _knew_ about her, as if everything in her soul had been laid bare.

Some part of her was glad.

***

"You want to talk about it?" Danny asked quietly. He had pulled her aside after Mel and Paul had already driven home. Though it was a question, Rebecca could hear that the request really wasn't an option anymore.

"What's there to say? We saved two of them."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Rebecca."

"I'm fine. My head doesn't even hurt anymore. You don't have to worry about me. I'll still be in to work in the morning."

"How did you know?" he asked bluntly, making her flinch. "You knew her name, and you weren't surprised at all. It's like you knew what we were going to find there. How did you know what was going to happen?"

_It was all encoded into dreams,_ she wanted to say. Her lips parted, then closed. "I sometimes make these leaps in logic," she said weakly. "I guess this was one of them."

"This was beyond a leap." Danny had his hand wrapped around her forearm, but it didn't feel threatening somehow. "What's been going on?"

"I... I've been having dreams," Rebecca said, her voice thin and reedy. "I've been seeing things. Everything you said would happen if I burnt out."

"Have you been sleeping at all?"

"Not unless I'm dreaming," she said. She didn't understand why she wasn't brushing him off, why she was answering everything like an automaton. She didn't want people knowing her. She didn't want people understanding her. She didn't _need_ them. She didn't want them close to her, getting under her skin.

His hand dropped down to clasp hers. "If you need to talk, you can find me. I know we don't talk much, but it always helps to know you're not alone."

When he let go and walked away, Rebecca was left feeling bereft. It coiled in her belly, a settled feeling of cold. Her spine felt chilled, and the shadows seem to creep past the edges of her peripheral vision. She lifted her head, saw that Danny's long strides had taken him halfway to his car already. Her only other way home would be via police car or ambulance.

She ran after him. "Danny!"

He turned, a startled look on his face. "Rebecca?"

She caught up with him, eyes searching his face. "Can you give me a ride home? I'd really appreciate it."

"I might want to talk to you on the way," he warned, lips quirking into an almost smile.

Rebecca mirrored his smile gratefully. "I know. I'm okay with that."

"All right then. Let's go home."

The light inside his car was warm and comforting, and blanketed her as she buckled up. She smiled at Danny, meaning it for the first time in a long time. He returned her smile, then drove off into the night.

***  
***


End file.
